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By Maury Brown An article (5 pages)Format - Adobe PDF Seventy years ago, Buzzy Bavasi began his distinguished career because of whom he knew. Farhan Zaidi has begun his career based on what he knows. The later has yet to be fully proven, but has been selected to work in a proven system, with Billy Beane and the A’s. Bavasi, along with Fresco Thompson, assembled some of the great teams of the last half-century.

Nearly 70 years since Bavasi’s big break, is baseball the same? Is it who you know? Is it a case of breaking into the front office by being of “baseball pedigree”? Is the vast wealth of knowledge via the Internet and statistical analysis changing the types of personnel deciding who will be drafted or on your team’s 40-man roster? Or, is it somewhere in the middle? A case of baseball lineage coupled with a solid grasp of Jamesian analysis that can provide objective evidence to find the best player personnel possible?